Opportunities for recent graduates are shrinking according to Adzuna, an online job search engine. The search engine has reported an eight percent decrease in the number of graduate jobs in April of this year compared with April of last year.

The average entry-level salary has sunk to a 30-month low at £23,309. However, Oxford and Cambridge cities have been noted as the best place for a graduate to look for a job.

Adzuna has suggested that the graduate employment slowdown could be caused by the impact of the National Living Wage and uncertainty surrounding the result of the EU referendum.

Doug Munro, a co-founder of Adzuna said, “In university libraries across the UK, students are ﬁlling in the job forms and crossing their ﬁngers. But they might need more than luck this summer.”

“Graduate vacancies are falling and new joiners are facing one of the toughest job markets in recent times,” he added.

“Many graduates may feel like it’s a rough deal right now. Graduate pay has fallen drastically from 2013 levels, and talks of rising tuition fee hikes next year will only add to this feeling.

“Unfortunately, fewer roles does inevitably mean more competition to ﬁnd a ﬁrst job, but graduates may have the upper hand in the long-term. Many of these schemes contain a longterm investment in development and fast-tracking to managerial positions.”

One piece of good news that came out of the date was for successful job seekers in creative industries is that they could be in for a slightly higher salary than a year ago. Salaries in the creative and design sectors averaged £31,524 in April, up 4.7 per cent from £30,115 the previous year, Adzuna said.

Zoe Fannon, currently reading for an MPhil in Economics at Oxford, told Cherwell, “Don’t panic!”. “From the [Oxford for National Statistics] data, the big picture over the past ﬁve years is of improvement in the labour market: rising wages, employment rate, labour force participation rate, productivity.”

“From the ONS data, the big picture over the past ﬁve years is of improvement in the labour market: rising wages, employment rate, labour force participation rate, productivity. Also, at the moment the consensus is still that, in most cases, one is better oﬀ with a degree than without.”

Fannon also noted the uncertainty created by the EU referendum. “Graduate-level jobs are likely mostly for September entry, so it won’t make a huge diﬀerence to them whether they do the advertising and hiring now or in July.”

High Fliers, an independent market research company which specialises in student and graduate recruitment research.

High Fliers’ report on the graduate market paints a diﬀerent picture to the statistics painted by Adzuna. The report stated that the country’s top employers plan to expand their graduate recruitment by 7.5 per cent in 2016. This takes graduate vacancies beyond the pre-recession peak in 2007 for the ﬁrst time.